George Stephanopoulos says 2024 presidential election will be 'a test for the candidates'

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: ABC News host George Stephanopoulos cautioned his audience once more about the 2024 presidential election on Sunday, June 2, asking them if they truly wanted former President Donald Trump, a convicted felon, to lead them. 

"In 1774, John Adams said, ‘representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty.' Two hundred-fifty years later, the heart and lungs of liberty are facing what may be the ultimate stress test," Stephanopoulos said during his show, 'This Week'.

A jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Manhattan hush money criminal case on Thursday.

George Stephanopoulos' message to his viewers

While Stephanopoulos noted that other criminal cases against Trump had yet to be resolved, he told viewers, "But for now, the New York jurors have already presented their fellow citizens with a choice: do we want to be represented, to be led for the first time in history by a convicted felon? That answer will come in November."

George Stephanopoulos says 'bedrock tenets of democracy are being tested' in 2024 elections

Stephanopoulos also took the time to argue that the presidential contest was anything but normal, following President Joe Biden's call for media to treat the 2024 election with extreme seriousness during his speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in late April.

"It’s all too easy to fall into reflexive habits, to treat this as a normal campaign, where both sides embrace the rule of law, where both sides are dedicated to a debate based on facts and the peaceful transfer of power. But that is not what’s happening this election year. Those bedrock tenets of democracy are being tested in a way we haven’t seen since the Civil War. It’s a test for the candidates, for those of us in the media, and for all of us as citizens," Stephanopoulos said, per Fox News.

He added, "No American president has faced hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for business fraud, defamation, and sexual abuse," and cautioned that no previous presidential candidate in history had gone through a criminal trial.

Joe Biden on the high stakes involved in 2024 presidential election

Biden informed reporters at the glamorous gala in Washington, DC, that the stakes in the presidential contest could not be higher.

"Move past the horse race numbers and the 'gotcha' moments and the distractions and the sideshows that have come to dominate and sensationalize our politics, and focus on what’s actually at stake," Biden said. "I think in your hearts, you know what's at stake. The stakes couldn’t be higher."

George Stephanopoulos sparred with Donald Trump's lawyer Will Scharf

Will Scharf, the attorney representing Trump, and Stephanopoulos got into a heated argument on Sunday after Scharf claimed the hush money criminal case against the former president had political motivations.

"There’s no evidence here of that," the ABC host said, responding to Scharf's argument that Biden was involved in the prosecution of Trump. "Sir, there’s no – there’s not – I'm not going to let you continue to say that. There’s just zero evidence of that."

"We’re going to vigorously challenge this case on appeal. I don’t think President Trump is going to end up being subject to any sentence whatsoever. And we look forward to getting this case into the – into the next court and taking this again all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to vindicate President Trump’s rights," Scharf said.